Mahathir told reporters after the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council meeting yesterday: “I want to tell you that I did not take a four-wheeler with somebody to the Karak Highway”.
Those whispers and rumours disappeared after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, which brought about a sea-change in global and Malaysian politics as well as in Malaysian-American relations.
Before September 11, Mahathir was unable to get an appointment with President Bush but after the World Trade Centre horrors, it was Bush who telephoned Mahathir. After September 11, in the international coalition and war against terrorism, the Anwar Ibrahim affair disappeared from the American radar screen for Malaysia with the United States Ambassador to Malaysia, Marie Huhtala saying in a recent interview that although Anwar did not have fair trials the two times he went to court, “it could be corrected in the appeals process”.
Huhtala did not explain what she meant by “correction” in the appeals process, whether it must involve quashing of conviction and sentence or whether it could mean upholding the conviction and sentence.
Mahathir will be making his first official visit to the United States after a long while, and almost at the time, Anwar’s appeal on his corruption case would be heard by the Federal Court early next month.
The Anwar case has been a political trauma for Malaysia creating a deep divide and poison in the Malaysian body politic. Anwar posed a great political challenge to Mahathir, a challenge which must be fought out in the political process and not through the abuse or misuse of powers involving other terrain like the administration of justice.
The country has a new Yang di Pertuan Agong and the time has come to draw out the poison from the Malaysian body politic by restoring the Anwar challenge to the political arena where it rightly belongs. This can be done with the grant of royal pardons by the Yang di Pertuan Agong to Anwar on the occasion of Federal Territory Day on February 1, restore Anwar’s personal liberty, civic and political rights. Mahathir must be prepared to face and fight out Anwar’s political challenge in the political arena through the democratic and constitutional process.
(24/1/2002)